Working together for a safer community

It has long been my belief that in order to tackle the problems that are occurring in the community, there needs to be consultation and engagement with people in the community to develop strategies to create solutions. For too many years, we have looked to governments and institutions to solve all of our societal problems while we go about our daily lives; this simplistic approach is clearly not working in an increasingly complex world.

While our institutions have a vital role to play and need to provide leadership, there has to be co-operation and partnership with the community for any strategy to be truly effective. This shift in thinking appears to be taking root in this province and we will all benefit from the results.

Last week, the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary released a three-year corporate plan for 2018-21 with a clear focus on continuing to foster partnerships with the community and an overall goal of building healthy and safe communities. The RNC consulted broadly with community groups to develop this plan and many of the groups were present at the public reveal a week ago to support the plan. That kind of co-operation was refreshing to see and the spirit of the plan is reflected in its title: Building Safe and Healthy Communities Together.

The strength of this plan is that it emphasizes prevention as opposed to only being about enforcement, and this is most evident when it comes to mental health issues. The plan recognizes that a large number of calls the RNC responds to are

The plan recognizes that a large number of calls the RNC responds to are mental-health related and the justice system is not usually the proper place for these community members to find themselves.

mental-health related and the justice system is not usually the proper place for these community members to find themselves.

The mental health mobile crisis response team — a partnership between RNC and the health system — is just one recent strategy that responds in the community and helps individuals before things escalate into a situation that could lead to incarceration. Such an approach will prevent people experiencing mental-health crises from ending up in our already overburdened prisons while directing them to community re- sources for appropriate help.

This strengthened collaboration with the community is also a positive when it comes to relationships between the police and members of the LGBTQ2 community.

In Toronto, there appears to have been a breakdown in this relationship with the resulting mistrust over the Bruce McArthur murder investigation, and city police forces banned from participating in the Gay Pride Parade.

Here in St. John’s, when the suggestion was raised of barring the RNC from the Pride March because of their refusal to apologize for the Village mall controversy decades ago, it was the community itself that responded with support for the RNC. This led to changes within the Pride organizing committee which better reflected the community’s beliefs, and it was recently made very clear by the new committee that RNC officers can participate in their uniforms. RNC Chief Joe Boland said he was pleased by this decision and looks forward to personally participating in this year’s march.

The RNC has put a fair bit of effort into building connections with the LGBTQ2 community, and throughout the recent controversy over their participation in Pride, they made it clear they would help in whatever way the community saw fit. How this situation played out in the end is a good example of why the community policing approach is an effective way of dealing with societal issues. It also illustrates how this is a two-way street — the community is responsible to engage equally in this partnership and be willing to adapt if necessary.

In the end, we all have a role to play in creating safe and healthy communities.